


It's All Last Call Here

by APgeeksout



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Community: intoabar, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In late September 2003, Dean Ambrose walks into a bar, and meets Lilly Kane.  </p>
<p>For Round 2014 of the <a href="http://intoabar.livejournal.com">Into A Bar</a> Ficathon on LJ.  Set pre-series for <i>Veronica Mars</i> and in the WWE kayfabe universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All Last Call Here

The nightclub is really a disused warehouse with a plywood stage and big-ass speakers at one end, a scarred wooden bar running the length of the opposite wall, and a few equally beat-up tables and chairs clustered around the perimeter. Honestly, the place is kind of a dump, but the dance floor is big and polished and clean, and he can already see how the ring will look set up in the center. 

There's no band tonight, but the place isn't totally deserted. If the same crowd shows up tomorrow, it'll be a respectable turn out. Not that he gives a shit about being respectable, or about the size of the audience. His guys are going to tear it up – when he's finally paid enough dues for a spot on the card, he's going to tear up every minute and every match – even if the only one there to see it is the bartender. 

Then again, this bartender is quickly becoming his favorite person, pouring every shot and beer he orders without hassling him to show the fake ID tucked into his wallet, even though Dean's probably not half as much fun for the guy to look at as the table full of pretty girls who are probably supposed to be doing algebra homework or working the junior class bake sale or some shit, instead of sucking down vodka drinks. 

He taps an erratic little drum solo on the edge of the bar and takes a long drag off his cigarette, sneaking a smoke while there's no one around to give him hell about it. Sure, they'll be real bad for him eventually, but there are worse habits he could pick up. Is going to pick up, unavoidable as the goddamn flu, if he stays where he is. 

And it's not like the wrestling he's counting on to get him out – or level him out even if he never escapes, though he won't (fucking _can't_ ) think of failure and reliable fallback plans as an option – is going to do his future self's old-man body any favors. Or like he's really going to be around long enough to be an old man, broken-down and short-of-breath or otherwise. 

And there's his cue – if he's smart enough to take it, which is always a risky bet – to hold off on the next round, because that's a heavy thought for a Wednesday night and he's got shit to do tonight that doesn't (necessarily) involve picking a fight or puking up illicit booze in the alley out back. 

“Can I get a light?” 

While he's been thinking cheerful thoughts, one of the girls from the homecoming committee has crossed over to perch on the stool next to his, a cigarette between two of her delicate, manicured fingers and a wheedling smile on her full, red lips. 

“I don't know,” he says, shaking his head in an elaborate display of regret. Might as well put on a good show for the girls back at her table – who he can see out of the corner of his eye, watching and whispering or laughing to each other behind their hands. “Smoking's a pretty filthy habit, you know. Don't know if I could live with the guilt.” 

Her smile shifts a few degrees into a smirk. “Funny. I wouldn't have taken you for being shy about corrupting a girl.”

“I guess we're even, 'cause I wouldn't have pegged you as innocent enough to be corrupted.” He fishes a lighter out of the pocket of his hoodie and extends it toward her. Instead of taking it from him, she puts those red lips around the cigarette and leans her face in toward him. She's working her audience as much as he is, and fuck if he doesn't like her for it. 

He flicks a flame to life, she leans closer yet, and they wait for the ember to catch.

“You got a name? A boyfriend who's gonna show up here and make me beat his ass?”

She breathes out a thin stream of smoke. “Lilly. The boyfriend is 2000 miles away. You?”

“Jon Moxley.” It's not true, exactly, but he doesn't feel like being Dean Ambrose tonight (most nights, if he's being honest, and he's about half a beer out from that too-truthful place right now). Still, it's not quite a lie, either: it's the name of the 22 year-old version of him that scowls out from the driver's license he hasn't had to show tonight, and of the guy he channels when he's monologuing in the mirror, cutting promos to an imaginary crowd instead of cutting somebody open. “Mox. Me and the boyfriend are on a break. And you might be able to take him in a fight.”

“I am pretty scrappy,” she agrees. She takes another drag, and signals the bartender for a refill. 

“Two-thousand miles is pretty far to come, just to end up in Cincinnati. You girls here on official Glee Club business or something?”

“Close,” she says, and smiles defiantly, like she knows she's about to say something mock-worthy and she just fucking dares him to start. “Dance Team.”

He salutes her with his beer glass, and doesn't have to say a single one of the smartass remarks that fill his head; she seems to hear them all anyway. 

“Fuck off,” she says, rolling her eyes, still smiling. She takes a demure sip of the vodka-whatever the bartender sits before her. “Just what totally cool and sophisticated thing brings you here, into the company of lowly Dance Teamers?”

“When they close up, I gotta help set up for a show.”

“You're in a band?” Her eyes graze over him again with fresh interest, and he's feeling just loose enough to be flattered instead of insulted, if he doesn't let himself sit here and think about it too long. 

“Nope. Wrestling show. Tomorrow at 7:00, if you're not, like, caught up in an angry dance-off or something.” 

“Wrestling, huh? I met Hulk Hogan at a birthday party once.” She arches an eyebrow. “We're probably stuck with our chaperone tomorrow, but if you're gonna be here in spandex, maybe I'll try to make an escape.” 

She finishes her drink and her smoke, and before she saunters back to her table of girls, he tells her to be watching out for him on TV. It's a joke, mostly, or at least he sells it that way, but he's in one of those weird moods where he knows in his bones it'll happen.

Thing is, she beats him to it. It's maybe a week later, only the beginning of October, but turning chilly early this year, the cold air soaking through his hoodie as he papers downtown with flyers for the Halloween show. 

He ducks into the pizza joint with the big public bulletin board on the back wall and the good garlic bread on the menu. The TV in the corner is tuned, as always, to CNN, and the screen's filled with her face, smiling knowingly out of pictures. Prom. Yearbook. A group shot of the Dance Team, all the other girls greyed-out around her. Pictures are bad news; no live video probably means no live girl. 

It's not until they cut to the local sheriff, a balding guy with a sad face and not much patience for the press mob surrounding his car, that he realizes he's dropped his stack of remaining flyers in a drift of orange around his feet. 

No one helps him scoop them up, or hassles him about doing it himself. Nobody seems to notice him – or her – at all.


End file.
